The ultimate in accessible living

Claudia Kwan, Vancouver Sun08.29.2011

The Smallman home was renovated to better meet the needs of seven-year-old Sidney. The Vancouver Special has been fitted with an elevator and a bathtub that has an overhead lift. Taps are motion-sensitive and space beneath the sink allows for easy access. At right, Sidney checks out the space with mom Dina, sister Aubrey and brother Atlee. The family will move into the home in just a few days.Wayne Leidenfrost
/ Vancouver Sun

The Smallman home was renovated to better meet the needs of seven-year-old Sidney. The Vancouver Special has been fitted with an elevator and a bathtub that has an overhead lift. Taps are motion-sensitive and space beneath the sink allows for easy access. At right, Sidney checks out the space with mom Dina, sister Aubrey and brother Atlee. The family will move into the home in just a few days.Wayne Leidenfrost
/ Vancouver Sun

The Smallman home was renovated to better meet the needs of seven-year-old Sidney. The Vancouver Special has been fitted with an elevator and a bathtub that has an overhead lift. Taps are motion-sensitive and space beneath the sink allows for easy access. At right, Sidney checks out the space with mom Dina, sister Aubrey and brother Atlee. The family will move into the home in just a few days.Wayne Leidenfrost
/ Vancouver Sun

The Smallman home was renovated to better meet the needs of seven-year-old Sidney. The Vancouver Special has been fitted with an elevator and a bathtub that has an overhead lift. Taps are motion-sensitive and space beneath the sink allows for easy access. At right, Sidney checks out the space with mom Dina, sister Aubrey and brother Atlee. The family will move into the home in just a few days.Wayne Leidenfrost
/ Vancouver Sun

The Smallman home was renovated to better meet the needs of seven-year-old Sidney. The Vancouver Special has been fitted with an elevator and a bathtub that has an overhead lift. Taps are motion-sensitive and space beneath the sink allows for easy access. At right, Sidney checks out the space with mom Dina, sister Aubrey and brother Atlee. The family will move into the home in just a few days.Wayne Leidenfrost
/ Vancouver Sun

The hallways and doors in the Smallmans' renovated home are extra wide, as is the clearance around the island in the kitchen.Wayne Leidenfrost
/ Vancouver Sun

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When you meet the Smallmans, it becomes clear they don't believe in barriers - either literal or figurative ones.

They are set to move in a matter of days into a house that they have made as accessible as possible for their seven-year-old son Sidney, who has cerebral palsy.

When Sidney was born in 2003, Kirk and Dina Smallman were living in a small condominium in Vancouver's West End. Sidney would be the oldest of the couple's three children.

"We were learning how to be parents for the first time, anyway," says Dina with a smile. "This [the CP diagnosis] just happened to come along with all of that other stuff at the same time."

That positive attitude seems to have never wavered. The Smallmans want their lives to be defined by what Sidney can do, rather than what he cannot.

Still, when a family has a child with CP - or other special needs - considerable forethought must be given to everyday activities. When the family is planning an excursion, for instance, there can be challenges in moving a wheelchair in and out of a home, especially if that home is less than thoroughly accessible. Consideration must be given as to what supplies need to be taken, and what facilities might be available at the destination.

Kirk, a movie location scout, has been well-equipped to handle those challenges, yet he and Dina began yearning for a home where they could truly relax, where they could turn off the parts of their minds always ticking off checklists.

By 2006, Sidney's little sister Aubrey had been born, and the family had moved to a bungalow in East Vancouver. They knew it was mostly a stopgap measure because they would need a larger home. They realized a home elevator would make their lives much easier, and put it at the top of their wish list.

The Smallmans began looking for a Vancouver Special, believing that style of two-level home would be more suited to become completely accessible than a heritage house, which may have had narrower hallways and perhaps increased stairways.

After more than a year of searching, they found the perfect home on a corner lot in East Vancouver. They also found Ed Bascombe, of Bascombe Construction, who would take on the work of transforming the house into a place where Sidney will be able to roam around just like any other kid his age.

Bascombe had worked for years in construction on public buildings at the Point Grey campus of UBC, so he has a little more familiarity than most with accessibility issues. The Smallmans had invited other contractors to bid on the job, but unlike some of them, Bascombe instantly understood that the focus was function much more than form. He and his team also realized early on that this was no ordinary renovation.

"I've worked with some of these guys [his tradespeople] for a long time," he says softly. "It's probably been 20 years with my tile guy. He was just finishing up the tub area,

and he was almost in tears - they all know how much of a difference this is going to make."

What the elevator alone will give them back is the gift of time, especially as Sidney gets older and heavier.

"Getting Sidney in and out of his walker is lots of work - he's 40 pounds of pure muscle, and the CP means that he does lots of arching," says Kirk. "Then there's bringing all his supplies . just carrying him upstairs takes 20 minutes."

Sidney has a metal walking frame that straps in behind him, allowing him to essentially walk on his own. He has little to no cognitive impairment and he knows full well that if he pushes the big black wall button that the elevator will arrive. He can also now reach all of the light switches in the house now that they've been lowered.

Installing a 30-foot support beam between the lower and upper floors allowed the home to be really opened up. There are now no hallways at all on the bottom floor, with the living room flowing directly to the kitchen to the bathroom to the den.

All of the hallways and doors are extra wide, as is the clearance around the island in the kitchen. The thresholds have been minimized to allow for smooth transitions from every area of the property.

There is an automatic door switch that will allow Sidney to easily come in from outside, and a wash station in the garage that will let Kirk and Dina wash down muddy wheels before the chair enters the house. Bascombe also came up with the idea of removing several inches of topsoil from the yard so that it's as flat as possible.

Dina, meantime, quietly advocated at city hall until they were granted a street parking spot alongside the house that is designated wheelchair only.

The upstairs houses an exercise room, all of the bedrooms, and more bathrooms. Sidney's has a cable lift that will allow him to be hoisted directly into the tub. All of the "extras" have gone to accessibility; there is no home theatre, for instance, and no wine cellar.

"The term 'accessible' is used quite loosely," says Dina. "People seem to think you put in a couple of ramps and that's it!"

Chimes in Kirk: "All of the stuff done here means that we'll be able to age in place too - this is probably the last home we'll live in."

Sidney tears around the block a few times in his walker, a wide grin on his face. Then it's on to making mudpies with Aubrey in the back yard, with little brother Atlee looking

on. In some ways, that says it all.

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Special to The Sun

BUILDING AN ACCESSIBLE HOME

. Work with a builder who will listen to your priorities, someone who truly understands utility versus better home appearance. The Smallmans pulled back on esthetic things - crown moulding and dormers over the deck doors, for instance - so they could keep items like the automatic door opener in the budget.

. Find people who have experience working on accessibility issues. They'll be better equipped to propose ideas, like the support beam that's allowed the main floor of the Smallman house to be so open.

. Look for tax breaks, grants and other forms of assistance. There are a number of groups out there that want to help people in need. The Smallmans funded their renovation on their own only because they had already used up all of the available assistance.

. Do your research, and then do some more. There are many products that can ease the way around accessibility.

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